The Internet is a powerful marketing tool for artists. A well-constructed website can reap thousands of viewers per day from all over the globe, all of whom can become potential collectors of your work.
To set up a website to display your art, you have several choices: you can do it yourself, you can hire a web designer to do it for you, or you can post your art onto an online artist gallery. Each of these three choices comes with its own pros and cons. Read through these descriptions to decide with route is best for you:
“How can I get buyers to find my art online?”
1.) Build your own website: If you are computer savvy, you can create your own website by registering a domain name, selecting a web host, and then building your site using a program such as Dreamweaver or Frontpage. This is the most time-consuming option, because if you don’t already know how to use these programs then you will have to learn them from scratch. These programs can be quite costly, but there are also some free WSYIWYG editors available, such as KompoZer. On the plus side, building your own website allows you complete control of how your work will be presented to the public.
2.) Hire a website designer: If you are pressed for time but you have a big enough budget, you can considering hiring a professional to design your website. Hiring a website designer will usually cost several hundred dollars, depending on the size and complexity of your website. Many designers charge per page. The benefits of hiring a website designer is that the site we will be built a lot more quickly than if you had to learn HTML, CSS and any other necessary computer languages from scratch. A good website designer will know how to present your artwork in the best way possible, using a clean and professional layout. This is something you might struggle with if you try to create a website on your own. Lastly, any decent website designer will also be well-versed in SEO, which is invaluable in generating traffic to your site.
3.) Post your work on an online artist gallery: An online artist gallery is an extensive website that artists can join (either for free or for a fee) to create a profile upload photos of their art. Examples of online artist galleries include ArtMajeur, ArtSpan, and d’Art. These sites tend to have free and paid versions, with extra perks for paying members. This is by far the least favorable of the three available options, because it means that your work will essentially be lost amongst all the other 10s of 1000s of artworks. If you want any degree of web traffic from these types of sites, you will need to become a paying member.
4.) Start an Art Blog: A great way to start your Art Blog is to use WordPress. A WordPress blog is also has many free, customizable and ready to go designs and themes. Also is extremely easy to use. Blog about different artists, color, historical arts and fun. A great example is by Segmation at www.segmation.com/blog.
In conclusion, if you want to gain a wider audience for your art through the Internet, then your best bet is to either build your own website or hire a website designer to build one for you or design at art blog such as www.segmation.com/blog.
Read more Segmation blog posts about art, color and fun:
Artistic and Inventive Mind: Creative Leonardo da Vinci
Finding Music in Classic Works of Art
Segmation’s Exclusive Interview with Artist Yukari
Be an Artist in 2 minutes with Segmation SegPlay® Mobile for Android and iOS (see more details here)
